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How did an entire state price itself out for entry-level home buyers?

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Re: How did an entire state price itself out for entry-level home buyers?

#71

Post by rconti »

zeveb wrote: post #52
rconti wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed]

The politics of Colorado, Florida, Oregon, Virginia & Washington have all noticeably undergone this effect over the past forty years. Heck, that effect was the entire reason for Bloody Kansas, with pro- and anti-slavery people moving into the territory in order to influence its politics. It's why the Free State Project exists. It's why some politicians want to decrease immigration, and others want to increase it. I'm…

1. Politics have changed, people have moved. You fail to draw a causal link. I'm not disputing that people don't take their attitudes with them as they move, but your post implies that people flee politics they don't like, but then vote for the same politics in their destination. Politics would have changed with or without migration. Political views and cultural attitudes are not static. etc.

2. You're right that politics change with migration, and that people have and do move with the explicit intent of influencing politics.

3. This comment would imply that people are happiest in places where they previously lived and hence would not move. It certainly doesn't support the assertion that they're fleeing the results of their own preferred policies.

4. Sure.

5. I agree with your first statement, but then the parenthetical statement gives up the game. You've concluded that people are forced/heavily incentivized to move to California and are lucky to be able to flee, which I have not found to be the case at all.

Re: How did an entire state price itself out for entry-level home buyers?

#72

Post by ScottBurson »

twblalock wrote: post #65
ScottBurson wrote: post #60

“Cities will tell you that from a property tax perspective, housing is a loser,” says David Cogdill, president of the [California Building Industry Association]. I was trying to make this point a few weeks ago here on HN, in a discussion on Prop. 13, and got pushback. I take this quote as evidence that it's common knowledge among people in the housing industry. Prop. 13 disincentivizes cities from adding housing. Pro…

Of course a disincentive to sell will be created by your proposal! Any lien that comes close to offsetting or canceling out the owner's gain will do that. The lien doesn't have to exceed the gain to create a disincentive. Why would anyone sell for little to no gain? Any time the potential gain is decreased, a disincentive to sell is created. Furthermore, not only does this create a disincentive to sell, it also creat…

Actually the people who would feel the disincentive most strongly are speculators. Those are the people we want to discourage.

The whole point is to slow the growth of prices, by giving cities an incentive to increase supply. Higher prices are the biggest disincentive to purchasers.

Re: How did an entire state price itself out for entry-level home buyers?

#73

Post by ScottBurson »

gozur88 wrote: post #66
ScottBurson wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I've started to wonder whether there is anyplace in the US that has both (a) California-style restrictions on non-compete clauses in employment contracts and (b) a Land Value Tax [0] as its primary local tax (not necessarily excluding a state income tax). Since the LVT is not widely used, it looks like the answer is probably No. I think anyplace that wants to attract tech companies should enact both of these thi…

Since Pennsylvania is the only state with an LVT it should be pretty easy to ascertain whether or not it fits your conditions.

Hyattsville, MD also has an LVT; but it seems that neither state outlaws (most) non-competes.

Re: How did an entire state price itself out for entry-level home buyers?

#74

Post by ckluis »

ScottBurson wrote: post #64
xrange wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the better it is for the rest of the country - entrepreneurial talent has already started to relocate elsewhere It's only better if they move elsewhere and refuse to vote for the same policies that caused the problems in the first place.

Yes. I've started to wonder whether there is anyplace in the US that has both (a) California-style restrictions on non-compete clauses in employment contracts and (b) a Land Value Tax [0] as its primary local tax (not necessarily excluding a state income tax). Since the LVT is not widely used, it looks like the answer is probably No. I think anyplace that wants to attract tech companies should enact both of these thi…

If Florida would get better about non-complete clauses it would be ideal. Beach, sales tax base via tourists, no income tax.

Alas… it has fairly strong non-complete compliance.

Re: How did an entire state price itself out for entry-level home buyers?

#75

Post by alanh »

moultano wrote: post #29
toomuchtodo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, when you move somewhere else, and you buy your home, you become the person that wants their home value maintained/protected. Are you going to vote against your own interests? If so, I applaud you. Otherwise, you're just distributing the problem across the country, as tech money flows through workers in secondary cities (inflating property prices in Austin, Denver, Boulder, Nashville, Portland, Seattle…

It isn't their home value they are protecting though. Increasing the zoning limit on a plot only causes its value to increase. It's the "character" of their neighborhood. Somehow we've gotten into a cultural state where everyone expects the place they live to stay exactly as it is for their lifetime. It's totally implausible and destructive, but people fight for it anyways, even when it isn't in their financial inter…

> Somehow we've gotten into a cultural state where everyone expects the place they live to stay exactly as it is for their lifetime.

I am trying to find a polite way to indicate that I find this to be a completely absurd reversal of the historical trend. Only within the last few generations, certainly within the last century, has it become so common to relocate far and/or frequently instead of most men living the whole of their lives within a day or two’s ride of their childhood home.

Re: How did an entire state price itself out for entry-level home buyers?

#76

Post by ThrustVectoring »

Grishnakh wrote: post #68
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhh, yes. California might have to export a bit less alfalfa. The vast majority of water use is agricultural.

Yes, and it's also frequently very wastefully used in agriculture. More water-efficient agricultural practices need to be mandated.

I'd prefer a market solution - fix the supply of water at the correct level, and have the price for water go up until the wasteful, non-worthwhile uses stop happening.

Re: How did an entire state price itself out for entry-level home buyers?

#77

Post by prostoalex »

ScottBurson wrote: post #60

“Cities will tell you that from a property tax perspective, housing is a loser,” says David Cogdill, president of the [California Building Industry Association]. I was trying to make this point a few weeks ago here on HN, in a discussion on Prop. 13, and got pushback. I take this quote as evidence that it's common knowledge among people in the housing industry. Prop. 13 disincentivizes cities from adding housing. Pro…

> Prop. 13 disincentivizes cities from adding housing.

disincentivizes cities from adding low-density housing

Once you start piling them up into high-rises, the revenue stream doesn't look that bad.

But for multi-family high rises different cities have a number of additional requirements. Minimum parking spaces, minimum number of feet from the sidewalk, minimum footage of "green zones" consisting of lawns or trees - all great things hypothetically speaking, but costs add up pretty fast, so any high-rise building is now a "luxury condo tower" when in theory increasing density should lead to decrease of cost per square foot, not increase.

Re: How did an entire state price itself out for entry-level home buyers?

#78

Post by prostoalex »

landryraccoon wrote: post #15
aplomb wrote: post #9

Started out with an every-man appealing headline and quickly showed its stripes of being a developer funded prop 13 hit article - totally separate from the horror show environmental impact has turned into. The examples given are completely out of whack and strawmen. prop 13 allows for effective tax increase through reassessment of value, but that reassessment is capped so when the market goes crazy people aren't driv…

Prop 13 creates an incentive for homeowners to oppose development, since their housing values will rise with no drawback on property taxes. It also means that the government is forced to raise sales and income taxes in order to raise revenue. It is harmful for society to have high housing prices which falls especially on younger workers and workers moving into an area, in order to benefit a small number of incumbents…

> Prop 13 creates an incentive for homeowners to oppose development, since their housing values will rise with no drawback on property taxes.

That is not necessarily true - increased development is sold at modern-day prices, pushing every homeowner's holy metric - $/sq.ft. - up. It's also taxed at modern-day prices, leading to municipal revenue increases.

I was using this screenshot of downtown LA to illustrate a similar point on a Facebook group - https://www.evernote.com/shard/s103/sh/11bfc9c3-6500-401b-87... - the amount of residential square footage in LA built over the past years is immense, and some other mega-complexes are sold out while still being built.

Increased vertical development brings more residents, which require more services (bars, restaurants, stores, coffee shops). The average $/sq.ft. only went up while DTLA added crazy amount of housing.

Re: How did an entire state price itself out for entry-level home buyers?

#79

Post by floatrock »

zeveb wrote: post #52
rconti wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed]

The politics of Colorado, Florida, Oregon, Virginia & Washington have all noticeably undergone this effect over the past forty years. Heck, that effect was the entire reason for Bloody Kansas, with pro- and anti-slavery people moving into the territory in order to influence its politics. It's why the Free State Project exists. It's why some politicians want to decrease immigration, and others want to increase it. I'm…

Lets say a migrant population does in fact have some "dangerous idea" that the locals don't want.

How big does that migrant population need to be before they have a sizable enough voting majority? Do the couple thousand people who moved from SF to Oregon or Seattle really really have the voting numbers to sway politics that much?

It's the idea that's contagious, not the people. Disenfranchising transplants does not stop the idea. If you want to stop the idea, you need to offer something better (or prove why the idea is dangerous).

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